Let's learn about the history of art

One subject I don't think I will ever know enough about is Art history. So I'm scrawling the Internet and reading these wonderful things called books to continue my out of school education. And with no grades looming over me or tests dictating what is important I can study in the nonlinear fashion I tend to.

http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/chauvet/img/fond04_x.jpg

If you want to be visually blown away check out this interactive 3D tour of some of the more elaborate cave paintings found in France. This is really quite amazing because they had these caves off-limits to tourists for years because the air and oils from people seeing the paintings were actually destroying them. So now they only open it up to small groups a couple times every year. But this site makes it possible for everyone to see it-- even if none of us are lucky enough to make the spelunking short list. The only down side to this site is if you don't understand french, it's really just a pretty tour.

http://www.lascaux.culture.fr/#/fr/02_02.xml

Another site I found has some nice English information to go with the pretty pictures. 

http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/chauvet/en/index.html

And one more less intimate site for good measure.

http://all-history.org/2.html

Horse, cave painting at Lascaux in France. Lower Paleolithic